August 15 coronavirus news

A 15-year-old boy from metro Atlanta became the second youngest person to die due to complications from Covid-19 in Georgia, according to the latest statistics released by the state health department.

The boy had other medical conditions, Nancy Nydam of the Georgia Department of Public Health told CNN. No further details on how the boy contracted coronavirus or whether he may have exposed other individuals to the virus were available.

A 7-year-old boy from Savannah is the youngest Georgian to die from Covid-19. The boy drowned in a bathtub after having a seizure due to a high fever and he tested positive for Covid-19 postmortem, according to Chatham County Coroner Bill Wessinger. The preliminary autopsy report says the child died from drowning, secondary to seizure due to fever from Covid-19.

Lebanon has reported 397 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the country’s Public Health Ministry said Saturday.

That takes the total number of infections in Lebanon to 8,442. Three people have died in the previous day, taking the total number of deaths reported as a result of the coronavirus to 97.

It comes as Lebanese President Michel Aoun said it would be "impossible" for him to step down following calls for him to resign over the deadly blast in Beirut. Aoun said if he were to resign, there would be a "void of power" in the country. On Monday, Lebanon's former Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his resignation and that of his government in the wake of the deadly blast, which he called a "disaster beyond measure."

University of Oklahoma head football coach Lincoln Riley announced Saturday that nine of his players tested positive for coronavirus. The results came back after the team returned from a one-week break from preseason practices.

The Oklahoma Sooners are part of the Big 12 Conference, which this week said it intends to move forward with a fall football season. 

Oklahoma is currently scheduled to open the 2020 season at home against Missouri State on September 12.

New York will provide health personnel and supervision so that the official 9/11 Memorial and Museum "Tribute in Light" tradition can continue this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a series of tweets on Saturday.

The American Heart Association recently warned that coronavirus can cause "devastating" and lasting cardiac complications. While the warning is concerning, it is not news to those treating coronavirus patients on the frontlines, said Dr. Dara Kass, an emergency medicine physician at Columbia University Medical School.

With 3,310 new cases in 24 hours, France has passed another record of post-lockdown daily coronavirus cases, according to numbers released by the National Health Agency on Saturday.

The number of hospitalizations increased by 29 to 4,857, according to the national agency website. The number of patients in intensive care also slightly increased to 376.

The death toll stands at 30,409, according to the national health agency.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a significant downgrade of South Africa’s strict Covid-19 restrictions on Saturday during a televised address to the nation and said that the country appears to be moving beyond the peak of infections. 

Ramaphosa announced that the alcohol ban will be lifted in the coming days and the controversial ban on cigarette sales will be rescinded. 

Large gatherings and international travel are still not allowed and a curfew will remain in place between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., but travel between South African provinces will now be allowed.  

Ramaphosa said that the swift action to lock down the country in March had a significant impact on the transmission of the virus.

“Difficult days still lie ahead, but we have proven our resilience as a nation for the past five months,” he said. 

More than 7,000 children have tested positive for coronavirus in Alabama, according to data on the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) website.

There are currently 103,357 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 4,223 probable cases, as well as 1,828 confirmed deaths and 68 probable deaths from Covid-19 in the state, the website shows.

Of those cases, 7% are in people aged 5 to 17, according to the demographics provided on the ADPH Covid Dashboard.

A total of 7,234 children have tested positive for the virus, according to calculations made using the data from the website.

Three pediatric deaths have been reported in Alabama, Dr. Karen Landers, area health officer for ADPH, told CNN in an email. 

The deaths included two infants and one teenager, all which had underlying health problems, Landers said. 

The age group with the highest number of cases is those aged 25 to 49, accounting for roughly 40% of all Covid-19 cases in the state, the website said. 

The US Food and Drug Administration announced Saturday that it has granted emergency use authorization to a Covid-19 diagnostic test that uses a new, inexpensive method of processing saliva samples. 

The test, called SalivaDirect, has been found to be highly sensitive, yielding similar outcomes to nasopharyngeal swabbing. Under the observation of a health care worker, saliva is self-collected in a sterile container without the use of a specific swab or collection device.

The molecular diagnostic test can yield results in under three hours, researchers said, and up to 92 samples can be tested at once. Researchers said the test costs only a couple dollars for reagents, and they expect labs to charge only about $10 per sample.

The method is being used by the National Basketball Association to test asymptomatic people for coronavirus. The NBA was among the groups that funded the research.

Looking to the future: The FDA has authorized four other coronavirus tests which use saliva samples. Emergency use authorization allows the FDA to greenlight a product to test for coronavirus on an expedited basis.